You got that feckin' right boyo. Its not just poetry, life isn't fair... its not meant to be.
Let's all give up on the Great Saturday Night Rip Off n' count ourselves lucky when things go well.


Poets do remind me of women, we are our own worse enemies....constantly strutting about in front of others or putting each other down... in the case of the latter, they remind me of abusive men.


i have been writing...pop by my blog for new ditties.

 

My Friend across the water,

Is Life Fair? Assuredly Not! As life is impartial at best and negligent at worst, do not expect fairness from that regard as it shall never come.

Thing is, what poets fail to realize, and adapt too, is that they are storytellers. The bards and troubadours of old had it correct all along.


You Adapt, You Improvise, You Go Forward! To do otherwise is to be swept aside and forgotten, by Life.

 

Actually Poetry is quite fair.

Really.

Honest.

Think about it.

If we all really, really, really REALLY WANT TO BE APPRECIATED FOR OUR WORK: there are time tested paths available, and we know them:
1. Carry on writing.

2. Carry on writing. Then die.

3. Carry on writing.
Learn the business art, because no one will be a bigger promoter of you than you, and no, THEY WILL NOT APPROACH YOU, UNLESS YOU:
4. Do what everyone else is doing: pick up a guitar, learn to rhyme, sing; always finish poem/songs/rhymes happy. Hang about famous spots. Talk about the same boring derivative generic crowd pleasing pap that you hear everyday, you know, the shit that drove you to poetry in the first place because no one was speaking exactly how you felt clearly enough. Because when you learn to entertain, and you are bankable, and commercial-enough, and put bums on seats, then you will get bookings off the yahzoo. Fact.


Otherwise, as the great Niall ha'd said, complaining don't do jack for nothing. if we did it for the mo, we'd be bankers. Awesome blog.

 

Niall,

I was just about to book you for a week of gigs paying 3000 in Honolulu, but unfortunately your habit of revealing the denouments of films I haven't seen yet has just talked you out of it. So I'm asking Ray Blake.


All the best! RTJ
 

Brilliant entry, Niall, although speaking as somebody who has also spent time in bands and time as a journalist, I don't recognise any major differences in the bitching of poets and the bitching of hacks and buskers (which you hint at above). Whenever I whine to my musician friends about the poetry circuit, they'll usually just say "Oh, so it's the same, then..."

One big difference is that I've often thought that poets are the most disadvantaged group of artists (if I can use that slightly cliched catch-all term) in that they very rarely have PR people, agents or the media fighting their corner. Self-promotion is a must for survival, and unfortunately very few of us are good at that - so those who excel in that department are almost certainly guaranteed some gigs if their material is acceptably average. In other fields, there's a bit more critical discourse going on to call people's bluffs.


However, the musicians get ripped off by their managers and record labels, and the actors get dropped as soon as their looks go... so we've all got our crosses to bear.

 

hi Niall, great blog ...just the push i needed to stop procrastinating on my space and get back to work .
all the best , Pauline
 

Take what you..re given
Give what you..ve got
life ain..t fair
that..s part of the plot.

x.D.